The Hunger Games: Where Allegory and War Film Conventions Meet

[iLeaveYouWithHugs]

#MindBlown

*hug*

[jupiterjelly]

Thanks I'll try that

[jupiterjelly]

Hey I have to do a research paper on Full Metal Jacket and how it conflicts with war film conventions, particularly Vietnam war film conventions, so can you recommend anything that I should read to help me with my paper?

[emmfan09]

@jupiterjelly Hey! We didn't have any actual texts for that class; all of our readings came from essays about Vietnam War film conventions that we read as PDFs. The best advice I can give you is to maybe search Google Scholar for Vietnam War film conventions and hope for the best? One of the first essays we had to read laid out many of the conventions that we went into deeper detail to during class. I hope that helps a little!

[ninjoy17]

This is a really interesting video. It makes you think.

Also I have been going back and watching a lot of your videos and you are amazing. :)

[hellolover99]

I don't know if it's because MJ is the most recent, but, it has always been my favourite. It affected me so deeply aftwerwords, like, I had trouble sleeping, and I just sobbed for hours once I'd finished. I might need to reread them, but MJ felt so much heavier to me, maybe precisely because this was the book where good and bad really started to blur. I feel like the character development was fabulous, even if the plot (especially near the end) was a little chaotic.

[jakemagnificentkiwi]

I've had this happen to me with many books. East of Eden. I hated it at first, until some type of epiphany hit me and it all made sense.

[keeporjot]

I've only finished Hunger Games, so will table watching the rest of this until I finish Catching Fire and Mocking Jay.

[hshea11]

I stopped watching just in case there were spoilers. The Hunger Games has been on my list since Frankie told me about it. I SWEAR I am going to read them.....soon.

[emmfan09]

@hshea11 Good! I certainly would NOT want to spoil it for you, Hannah Shea! :D

[Mrpapayaheadrulesall]

That's what I liked about the Hunger Games: that it wasn't so much about the differences between Panem and our society, but the subtle similarities

[thewalruswasdave]

This made me want to read the second and third ones.

[fecklessman]

another thing: if this book was meant to reflect the vietnam war, it failed miserably in the actual war part of it. american involvement in the vietnam war was controversial and ill-advised action, but the war in the hunger games series was justified. there is similarity in the theme, such as the absence of a personified real hero and villain, but the things the government of panem were doing [including and especially the hunger games] were objectively wrong from a human rights standpoint.

[emmfan09]

@fecklessman Yeah, I mean, I think I said in the video how there's no distinct war correlation to the actual war. I can't decide if I want to argue that the actual Games were the war or if the war itself was the war. I might have cut that part out. I also left out a bit about Vietnam Syndrome and about ill-advised military action for time sake and because I didn't say it exactly how I wanted. But yes, I think I wanted to focus more on conventions surrounding war than the politics behind it.

[fecklessman]

@emmfan09 what i mean is that, while katniss herself was not necessarily a virtuous hero character, the cause of freedom from the oppression of panem was what everyone was rooting for. the point of a character is to embody the cause, and the idea of the mockingjay [as opposed to katniss herself] is who we were basically encouraged to care about. but in the end it was all thrown away and we were just plunged into a 'well this still sucks, war is hell, blah blah blah' world with no resolution.

[fecklessman]

@emmfan09 and that's why mockingjay was not a good book. all the wondrous allegory and transferred emotion in the world is great from an artistic standpoint, but building up characters and excitement to end up with 'oh, and rue exploded. then katniss killed the corrupt district 13 guy. and i guess she married peeta or whatever. the end.' i mean, i get what she was trying to do, and she accomplished her own goal, but i don't LIKE it. the whole book built to a climax that never happened.

[rimiwhat]

@fecklessman i agree with that completely, it was more of an anticlimax than anything, and it just seemed plain lazy, kind of like the last harry potter book. this video was insightful nonetheless

[fecklessman]

@rimiwhat deathly hallows absolutely had a climax. a rather good one, actually. what didn't you like about it? the epilogue? because she didn't really owe us even that.

[rimiwhat]

@fecklessman i meant it seemed lazy like the way the last harry potter book was written. imho i felt as if she'd changed the intended plotline and the epilogue was.. superfluous and her writing style was not nearly as good as the other books. of course that's just my opinion, but i thought the first six books were absolutely brilliant

[fecklessman]

@rimiwhat interesting. deathly hallows is probably my second favorite book, so i definitely don't agree that it was poorly written. but that's an interesting perspective. half-blood prince is still my favorite. but yeah... i don't know. she did change the plot line a bit, because harry was supposed to die. but i think it was a good change.

[rimiwhat]

@fecklessman i dno i guess it's a personal thing. when i read her books i really enjoyed her humour and her detail and i guess to me the 7th read almost like a movie script. and lol yea, harry was sposed to STAY dead, that's probably the biggest change of all.. i felt as if she changed it just for the little kids that might be reading and it felt kinda unwhole for that reason. regardless, still one of my favourite series

[fecklessman]

it's nice that she followed the conventions as closely as you're saying, but it doesn't make mockingjay any more satisfying than it was before. i didn't dislike the book because it didn't have a super happy ending, i disliked the book for the same reason i disliked the very end of the lost finale: it didn't deliver on the implied promises of the preceding works.

[SheDoesntKillGophers]

The ten seconds between 2:20 and 2:30 is one of the only times I've ever truly understood what you were talking about.

[eversinceimmortal]

Huh. So interesting! That does make a lot of sense!

I love your point about disliking things without proper reasons; I suppose that shows a lack of respect for the author.

[kassiehp0593]

I love this point of view. And the Vietnam comparisons are incredibly strong. This is really interesting. And I love that you thought so much about this. I wish that I had known more about Vietnam as I was reading it and this is so true and I love how you made this and while I already loved Mockingjay I want to reread it now... yeah. Love you. xD

[emmfan09]

@kassiehp0593 <333 Also, you were the one who heard all of my initial reactions to Mockingjay, and they were so DIFFERENT than how I feel now. Let's reread it sometime and then DISCUSS. Because I like talking about books on Skype because I am THE MOST EXCITING PERSON EVER.

[nerdgirlsforthewin]

wonderful! I am with you all the way on this, well said. I will be rereading all of these for sure (already reread Hunger Games and it still shocked me when it ended...oh, the weird parts of reading on a Kindle...)

[hopeonatenspeed]

i love this!

[chelseariffic]

The Hunger Games is right behind Harry Potter (and John Green's books) for me as well. Thanks for sharing these analogies. Really interesting.

[shecaptain]

This was a fantastic analysis of the series. When I finished the last book I didn't like it, but I liked that I didn't like it, if that makes sense? The end is just the end, not really a happy ending or a fulfilling ending. So yeah, fantastic series and I really need to give it a reread.

[emmfan09]

@shecaptain Yeah, ThePeter left a comment about not really liking it and not really disliking it because it kind of echoes the feelings of war. We can't really like that a war happened, but I guess we sort of can't dislike it either because of the disrespect it brings to the soldiers/troops/families/etc.

[elizziebooks]

I seriously didn't think about the Vietnam War when reading this. I was like "Yeah this is wartimes" and NOW wow. A whole new perception of the book.

Also, have you read The Things They Carried? I haven't read it in about four years, but from what I remember there are some similarities with the characters' outlook on war and how it affects their lives.

[emmfan09]

@elizziebooks No, I haven't! I will add it to my list, for sure! :D We all need to reread Mockingjay and then have a big discussion about it hahaha.

[elizziebooks]

@emmfan09 um, yes. just tell me when and i will be there.

[XxXTaylorLaineXxX]

Aw yeah. This was so fantastic.

[15writergirl]

finally, someone likes this book. thank you. now i know im not crazy!

[dinasaurish]

Oh my goodness, Ryan. I rarely leave comments, but I had to speak up here: I'm so glad you picked up on the blurring of these boundaries in Mockingjay. So cool!

[emmfan09]

@dinasaurish I'm so grateful/pumped that my video pushed you to leave a comment! :D

[thepeteris]

Bitch you crazy, book sucked.

But really, I agree for the most part. I still don't think it was a very enjoyable or satisfying series, particularly MockingJay. Definitely not up among my favorites. But, after my initial disappointment with MJ, I came to appreciate it a bit more. Feeling empty and disappointed at the end is how one SHOULD feel at the end of a war. Even if you "win". I think that's what Collins was going for, that there can't really be a happy ending after a war.

[fecklessman]

@thepeteris return of the jedi had a happy ending after a war. THERE WERE EWOKS, PETER. DANCING EWOKS.

[thepeteris]

@fecklessman I feel that this proves my point...

[shessomickey]

Fascinating, Ryan! A very specific take on a general theme that I think we all understood, but might not think critically about unless pushed. Thanks for pushing me to think deeply (=

[evmoneyTV]

The series is awesome and the analogies do really fit. But Mockingjay as a book was still a poorly executed end to a narrative IMHO. There were characters who lived who should have died and characters who died who should have lived. And the end to her quest was very unfulfilling. It would equate to Frodo passing out just before reaching Mt. Doom, then waking up later to learn that Sauron has been captured and he can do what he wants with the ring. What?

[emmfan09]

@evmoneyTV Hahaha I mean, I'm never one to say "THIS CHARACTER SHOULD HAVE DIED!" because, like, if they didn't then obviously they weren't supposed to. I remember being disappointed about a certain character's death and I'm sure you know who I'm talking about, but then I guess I understand later why that character had to die. Much in the same tune as why JKR kills off all innocent, for lack of a better word, characters.

[evmoneyTV]

@emmfan09 I disagree. MacBeth needed to die. Madame Bovary needed to die. If an author creates a monster, the monster either has to be redeemed or has to die. And there was such an opportunity to create a profound, thought-provoking tragedy by having a monster born as a victim of a senseless war, who then dies in a final act of redemption. Instead, another character died in a way that was like an afterthought, because it was simply for the sake of killing an innocent. Poor narrative.

[acrrazywriter]

Ahhh you are brilliant. I loved the books though, and saw a lot of symbolism in the book and such, but I definitely did not connect it with Vietnam! (probably because I don't know much about Vietnam, but still.) Great analysis & really interesting :)

[xperpetualmotion]

Also, I think one of the reasons I didn't like Mockingjay at first was because I was reading it at midnight on no sleep, and that makes a difficult book to read even more difficult. I really need to read the whole series again with proper sleep so I can fully appreciate it.

[emmfan09]

@xperpetualmotion Hahaha yeah, I always like to give the books some time to digest in my brain, and with this one, I had to put it down and sort of leave the world and return back to it. And I did that with the HP books a lot, too, which is why I think I initially loved DH more than a lot of people. And of course I love it even more now! :D

[xperpetualmotion]

Wow, this was so interesting! I'd love to hear more of your thoughts if you ever do a part 2 of this video :)

[MalfoyIsOurKing]

I know a load of people didn't like Mockingjay but I want to know why you don't like it.

Also, the whole no one is the ultimate good and no one is the ultimate bad is definitely one of the things I loved LOVED about the series.

ps I hope your goal was to make me want to re read the Hunger Games books because that is exactly what I want to do now.

[emmfan09]

@MalfoyIsOurKing Well, at first at didn't like it for all the reasons that I respect it now. It's my favorite in the series! And I totally want everyone to reread it now because that's what I am going to do VERY, very soon. :D